


Nightlights and Skylines

by ExcessivelyLiberal



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Attempt at Humor, Cockblocked by a Child, Cuddling, Death of a Parent, Fluff, He's Anywhere Between Four and Eight, I'm Writting This and I Realize There is A Bit of Actual Sexual Activity, Implied Sexual Activity, Insomnia, Kid!Dave, M/M, Nightmares, Not Like That, Not Smut Enough To Be Smut, Oh Gross, Past Substance Abuse, Suicide, Unspecified Setting, You decide!, bare with me, dirkjake - Freeform, okay I lied
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 03:25:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11348880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExcessivelyLiberal/pseuds/ExcessivelyLiberal
Summary: Dave hasn't had a full night sleep since his father committed suicide four months ago.(Or- An unnecessarily long exposition, the meeting of two young men prompted by a jugulo, and a recovery. )





	Nightlights and Skylines

**Author's Note:**

> The chapter cut off is a bit forced (it was originally meant to be a one shot). I might compile the chapters later.

Dirk Strider had lost his virginity when he was thirteen years old.

Well. He wasn't quite sure about that.

There had been small house party and a girl named Roxy, who had tasted like vodka cranberry and smoke, holding a bitter heart, electric soul, and a sharp tongue. She had been fresh as a dandelion next to the garden-variety girls and boys that crowded his district Junior High; bright and unattainable but still nothing more than a weed.

She wore blue and green fish-nets and low cut t-shirts, showing off her impressive amount of cleavage and toned midriff. Her pleated mini-skirts were torn and her shoulder length hair was coarse from years of cheap dye and dollar-store product. And she was beautiful.

Back when he was thirteen, still reeling over his mother's abandonment and father's newfound temper, Dirk thought that he loved her. Roxy had been intoxicating that night at the party, sliding between girls and boys, her tattered scarf billowing behind her like an extension of her own body.

The same scarf she'd use to hang herself just a couple years later, leaving nothing but a dangling body and an apology to her little sister, scribbled hastily on a crumpled post-it note.

But that night he hadn't known that she sold her body for coke, or that she stood to protect her baby sister when their mother started throwing porcelain dishes. That night, she was simply a metaphor for everything Dirk himself wanted to be.

Confident.

Desirable.

An angel back lit by hell fire and neon lights.

But he was thirteen, a foot and 50 pounds smaller than the other boys his age, and the definition of a wallflower. So he stood, holding a bottle of beer idly in his shaking his hands, terrified to miss a moment of Roxy's glory.

She danced like she was made of rubber; all hips and chest and pure, unadulterated energy. She danced like she was trying to outrun something.

Roxy was receiving quite a bit of approval, too. Cat calls and shrill whistles; a few brave souls even tried to dance with her. She allowed it, but they never stayed for long, and she never looked disappointed, and she never stopped moving.

The night grew older and somewhere after his third beer, Dirk felt something deep inside of him... shift. It was small, subtle, like the gap between Roxy's two front teeth. But it was there, and every bottle he downed, the sharper this feeling became. Dirk, with his stupid blue-collar name and stupid baby brother, stared at Roxy from between his long bangs, throat burning and soul stinging beneath his new something.

Dirk approached her slowly sometime in the early morning. For the first time in his life, his mind was too clouded to hate his body and his stringy hair, so drunk that before he reached Roxy on the dance floor, he brushed his bangs from where they were styled meticulously across his eyes, the two delicate flames resting in his eye-sockets, burning and writhing and finally coaxing a bit of fearlessness from his chilled bones.

When Roxy saw Dirk for the first time, prompted by his calloused hand on her soft shoulder, she looked a bit startled. Maybe from his odd, amber eyes, or maybe because she hadn't noticed his approach. But when her ghostly blue eyes scanned his gaunt body and eventually landed on his hollow face, a small smile rose from her sweat-streaked cheeks.

After that- a blur.

He knew they danced for what felt like hours, drank the house half empty and made out in the kitchen until they were both panting for breath- Roxy perched on the counter with her long legs wrapped tightly around Dirk's midsection, thrusting and rubbing herself against his stomach as hard and fast as she could. But soon it wasn't enough for either of them and Roxy hopped from the island, stumbling for a moment before turning to grip Dirk's hand and half dragged him up a flight of carpeted stairs and into an unoccupied bed room.

And if the memories were blurred before, they all but fizzled out after that.

The next morning, Dirk woke up (hung over, tangled in sheets, and unexpectedly, but disappointingly, alone), to a cool hand on his bare shoulder. It was the hostess, Terezi Pyrope, who looked down upon him with an odd combination of disgust and respect, wearing nothing but a weird dragon snuggie and her trademark pair of red tinted reading glasses.

"You totally fucked on my mom's bed. That is absolutely meta." She pulled off her glasses, and wiped them on the fleece of the snuggie. "Anyway, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I'm going to have to ask you to vacate the area. My folks are coming home a bit sooner than anticipated, and I won't have time to wash the cum out of the sheets if I don't start soon." She finished with a wicked grin on her face; following Dirk's bare ass with a sharp gaze when he rolled from the bed and started looking for his jeans, which he must have flung off the night before.

"Ah, ah, ah," Terezi chirped, a smirk in her voice. Dirk turned abruptly to find her with an eyebrow cocked and his boxers dangling from a crooked finger. A wave of scarlet washed across his cheeks, and he stormed toward her, grabbing his shorts as he passed.

That very afternoon, Dirk hovered outside the local liquor with a fist full of twenty dollar bills that he'd stolen from his father that morning, offering passing men and women cash and a tip for purchasing a keg for him. It was slow going, but he was drunk by nightfall.

And the night after that.

The afternoon after that.

The morning after that.

Until he was sleeping through and skipping classes, eating next to nothing and wishing he had never met Roxy or cut his hair, wishing that one day he would wake up and his mother would still be there and his baby brother would still want to curl up and fall asleep in his lap.

Apparently babies don't like the smell of booze.

But he ignored Dave's fearful whimpers and his dad's screams; drinking until he ached, and wishing one day he'd wake up dead.

That's how he'd met Jake.

Dirk arrived at the club on the eve of his eighteenth birthday, wearing a black tank top, skinny jeans and a pair of pointed shades that made him look like some kind of low budget anime villain, but in a good way.

He sat perched at the bar, sipping a square glass of tequila, tentative after waking up up that morning naked and under a bridge 20 miles from his apartment. It had happened before, but coming to right under the place where his father had killed himself just months ago had struck home.

Dirk took swig and leaned back, ignoring the sudden clenching in the back of his throat and focusing instead on the plethora of drunken college students swaying on the dance floor.

He was sad and horny and no one seemed right. A girl with cherry red lips looked appealing, but she turned around and he saw that her thick blond hair was braided in neat cornrows and Dirk felt his mouth rise into a sneer.

Cultural appropriation was kind of a huge turn off.

There was a boy that looked promising- small and blond but decidedly too similar looking to Dave to be any sort of okay.

Incest was also a huge turn off. Take note, Tumblr.

A tall, ashen-skinned guy hidden in the shadows of a far corner, high off his ass by the looks of him, caught his eye and winked, a sharp toothed grin sliding across his painted cheeks.

 _Oh, fuck_ , Dirk thought, turning his head quickly to break their gaze, _A juggalo._

There were others that he disregarded for more insignificant reasons. A girl's hair was too long. Another was dressed like a fucking cat, and one boy wore duel colored movie theater glasses that didn't quite seem ironic enough to be... ironic.

Deciding that there was no reason to stay and he might have better luck at the bar down town, Dirk rose to his feet, grabbing his jacket from his stool and draping it over his elbow.

"Wait!" a voice from behind him called. "You can't leave just as I've found the courage to come talk to you!" Dirk turned, eyebrows raised in subtle surprise. A flustered looking boy stood behind him, pushing a wave of chestnut colored hair from his green eyes and smiled nervously.

The boy was tall, a hair or two shorter than Dirk himself, and managed a hip to shoulder ratio that would have made a _drag queen_ repress tears of envy. He was olive skinned and attractive enough to make Dirk wonder why he hadn't noticed the boy earlier.

"Um- the name's Jake. Jake English!" the boy- Jake, apparently, winced. "I just saw you looking around-oh, god, you're probably not even into guys- I just-um... the lad with the face paint over there just hit on me and I told that I was with you but then he was like 'well motherfucker, why aren't you with him then,' and I felt threatened so-" Jake took a deep breath, his face flushed with embarrassment. It was very cute, actually, seeing a full grown man so flustered. "So, here I am. Pretending to be with you. And usually I wouldn't care-I grew up on a damn island and there were huge fuckin' bugs there; I once saw centipede that was like," he rocked on the balls of his feet and held his hands about a foot apart from each other. "this big. What was I saying? Oh, yeah- I wouldn't usually be worried, but that guy had some sharp teeth. Like, one day he went to the dentist and was like 'fuck me up, man' and the doctor was like 'okay.' but the doctor was really high or something so he just pulled out his teeth and gave him a pair of... shark... dentures or something, I don't know-"

"Alright, Jake. I'm going to stop you right there." Dirk deadpanned and Jake froze, like he was preparing for a blow. "It happens to be my birthday and considering I've been drunk for approximately the last five years of my life- and yes, that includes today- I probably won't remember or regret fucking you in the morning. I'm not pressuring you and I hope we can still be friends, etcetera, etcetera. But," Dirk dropped his voice an octave and stepped closer, sending visible shivers down Jake's spine, "I've had a lot of practice, and I can assure you that you'll enjoy it." From where his head rested an inch away from Jake's collar bone, Dirk could see his adam's apple bob.

"I-okay."

"Great. My place or yours?"

"Um. I live on an island. I mean- I was just kicked out of an island, so I'm not really living anywhere at the moment. So... yours, I guess."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Dirk reached for the other man's hand, dragging Jake past the bar, through the dance floor, out of the club and into the cool night's air.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my first Homestuck fic! Forewarning: I'm pretty into writing MCR at the moment, so please don't expect or spam me with requests for more Homestuck.


End file.
